Demystifying The Most Common Kinks | The Foot Fetish

What does it mean to have a foot fetish? What can you expect - and, more importantly - get up to? Writer Stella Harris demystifies one of the most common kinks out there. 

A few summers ago, I met someone at a friend’s party. We started talking and flirting, and then he asked if he could rub my feet. My mind was blown. I’d finally hit what I considered the kink jackpot; someone with a foot fetish. Although not my fetish, I love a good foot rub. I was used to partners doing it to be kind to me rather than because of any enjoyment on their part.

It shouldn’t be so rare to run into someone with a foot fetish. Feet are one of the most fetishised body parts, and the foot fetish one of the most common kinks and inspiring a niche sex toy, the Vajankle.

What do people with a foot fetish look like?

Like any other kink, you can’t identify who has a foot fetish just by looking. And what that fetish means is different for everyone. For some, it’s an essential part of their sexuality. It might even be the only way they can get off. For others, it’s more suppressed - only finding form in surreptitious glances. More than one person I interviewed mentioned loving the summer months because that meant people would be out in skimpy sandals.
 

The Chinese and the most common kinks

My conversation with S. offered some cultural context: “In college one of my concentrations was Chinese history. I wrote a paper about foot binding, it was fascinating, not because I fetishise bound feet per se (I don't) but because there was such a deep cultural love of feet for so many centuries in China.

"An obsession with feet wasn't a fetish as much as a normative attraction. Doing that research made me yearn for a culture where feet were treasured and regarded as a subject of desire and a source of mutual pleasure."

An anonymous contributor said: “Along with many of my Asian brothers throughout history, I've shared a great appreciation for women's feet. And have incorporated foot play into my sex life for years. Toe sucking, nibbling, and sensual massage of the feet are all things that have brought both myself and lovers great pleasure. I've also visited a few pleasure houses in Asia where I've had women bring me off using just their feet. Always a great pleasure (but apparently something best left to professionals).”

Toe sucking, nibbling, and massage are all part of the foot fetish; one of the most common kinks.

Being on the other end of a foot fetish

For people on the receiving end of these attentions, it can be a mixed bag. Amanda tells me that her relationship with a foot fetishist left her feeling used, even though some of the attention was pleasurable.

“I became less of a person, and more of an object,” she says. “He taught me how to tell a person who is only interested in one feature. Now I know that people like him are great at play parties. I get a pedicure, a foot rub, but I only engage long-term with partners who find more than one piece of me desirable. I need more of a connection than just ‘fuckable feet’ or a pretty face.”

Early interest in one of the most common kinks

Of course, objectification isn’t isolated to foot fetish alone, and most of the people I talked to made it clear that this was just one aspect of their sexuality, rather than the dominant drive. That said, an interest in feet cropped up at a young age for many, S. told me: “I recall being a young child and tying my shoelaces tight and savouring the constricted feeling. And the sensation of my pulse beating against my shoe.”

Flasher explained similar early interest: “I know I started noticing people's feet sometime around middle school, which was the time frame of my sexual awakening. I have a specific memory of noticing the feet of a guy sitting nearby in band class and late in high school. I remember getting to rub the feet of two girls I was working closely with."

"My first serious girlfriend had an interest in feet herself. She told me how she came across her interest, which was striking. She was a dancer growing up, and she saw feet a lot in dance. And came to recognise the power and strength they could have.”

Ultimately, interest in feet - whether looking at them on the street or worshipping them in the bedroom - isn’t any more unusual than an interest in breasts, or asses, or any other body part. It just comes down to cultural norms. In another century, who knows what the most common kinks will be.

Stella Harris is an author, educator, and coach who helps people build the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to explore their sexuality safely and free of shame.
 

Did you know the foot fetish was one of the most common kinks? Is it one of yours? Let us know in the Fetish.com forum. 

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